Why do Asian kids outperform Western kids in math by Malcolm Gladwell

why it is that asian kids do so much better at math than their western counterparts right now the numbers here are irrefutable and they're extraordinary the differences in mathematics performance between kids in singapore hong kong south korea japan and kids in america germany england or what have you the fact we just got round of results from these international math test comparisons think couple weeks ago and we're talking the difference is not this the difference is is that and if you look closely at trying to figure out why it seems to be the case that the difference the reason for that difference has to do with attitudes it has to do with what is the attitude with which the child in those two sets of cultures approaches math problem and it seems to be the case that when asian kids sit down and face high school math problem they have different expectation of what solving that problem entails they have an expectation that if they apply effort to the problem the problem is solvable whereas when we look very closely at the attitudes of western children they seem to have the attitude that their ability to solve that math problem is function of their ability of their innate ability something they either have or they don't and that attitudinal difference seems to make prof have profound effect on the ability of kids to do well at math because as it turns out the asian approach to mathematics is the correct one when say correct let me give you an example so these international math tests that we give to kids around the world they're called tims we give the tims every four years it's the same test to kids all over the world and and that's how we come up with these rankings of how countries do well when we give the tims to kids at the same time as we give them the math test we give them questionnaire and the questionnaire is really long it's 120 questions long and it asks them all kinds of questions about that it will be useful to researchers so how many hours do you study do your parents encourage you do you like math you know all those kinds of things but it's really long and it's so long in fact that most kids don't finish the questionnaire it's just too too long right so couple years ago this really brilliant guy called erlingbo at penn decided he would rank the countries of the world by what percentage of questions on the questionnaire their kids finished right you know what he found when he did that ranking the two rankings were exactly the same it's the same thing when we if you want to know how good country does at mathematics in other words you don't have to ask that country's kids any math questions you just have to make them do task that requires them to sit down at seat for an extended period of time and focus on task right and if they can do it they're good at math really really fascinating and that tells us where the deficit in our mathematical education in the western world lies it's not in our curriculum it's not in the quality of our teachers it's not in the size of our classrooms it's not in the amount of money we spend on schools it is the attitude in the head of the child as he or she sits down in 11th grade and does algebra or calculus right and by the way nor is it problem in our genes as some people would like to say of there's whole bizarre argument that westerners have an inferior set of genes when it comes to mathematics than easterners you know totally ludicrous and unnecessary step in this argument no it's about culture it's about difference in attitude and about their ability to far more efficiently capitalize on the abilities of their kids now why now why is this the case mean this is i'll just digress for moment really really interesting question is okay if asian cultures have profoundly different attitudes towards effort when it comes to mathematics why right where does that come from and nobody knows but in my book venture what think is plausible explanation and that is that think it has to do with patterns of effort laid down in in historical agricultural practices that when you look what what is the thing that hong kong south china south korea and japan all have in common that is they are historically rice growing cultures right and what is distinctive about rice growing it is the most labor intensive and cognitively complex form of agriculture known to man we know so my my my father's european ancestors in the middle ages in northern england probably worked thousand hours year as peasant farmers so what that meant was they worked from from dawn to noon five days week on the weekends they drank themselves silly and during the winter they slept basically and they got lots and lots of this but peasant in medieval england got lots and lots and lots of holidays that peasant's counterpart in south china or japan in the same period would not have worked one thousand dollars year they would have worked three thousand hours year for the simple reason that rice farming is just whole it is not not difference not that's not just difference in degree from wheat farming is difference in kind it's whole different way of working it demands that you wake up at dawn and work all the way until dusk it demands that you work on the weekend in fact there's wonderful chinese proverb that quote in the book which is man who works dawn to dusk 360 days year will not go hungry right which is encapsulates the difference between eastern and western agricultural practices no my peasant ancestors in northern england it would be inconceivable if they could call that proverb they would have said the man who works 175 days year dawned to 11 may or may not be hungry right well my argument is if your culture does that if that's what you guys what you do for thousand years that attitude is deeply rooted part of your makeup and when your kids even if they didn't themselves work in rice paddy when they sit down and face calculus or an algebra problem that legacy that attitude towards effort and persistence translates beautifully to that most modern of tasks you